Nominees for the 53rd Paeksang Arts Awards have been announced on April 6, 2017. KBS’s Moonlight Drawn by Clouds, MBC’s W – Two Worlds, SBS’s Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim, and tvN’s Goblin and Dear My Friends are nominated for the Best Drama title in the television category.

The announcement was made earlier this year compared to last year when the nominees were announced in early May and followed by the awarding ceremony on June 3, 2016. For this year, the ceremony will be held on May 3, 2017.

A total of 17 dramas have received nominations for seven (7) awards. Both Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim and Goblin have the most number of nominations at 5, followed by W – Two Worlds, Moonlight Drawn by Clouds, Dear My Friends, and Oh Hae Young Again with three (3) nominations each.

Best Drama

Moonlight Drawn By Clouds (KBS)

W – Two Worlds (MBC)

Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim (SBS)

Dear My Friends (tvN)

Goblin (tvN)

Just like last year, the three big networks (MBC, KBS, & SBS) has one drama each nominated for the Best Drama award while tvN has again two. Last year the cable network made history when its Friday-Saturday drama Signal won the title and became the first ever cable drama to win the prestigious award. It beat out strong contenders Descendants of the Sun, She Was Pretty, Six Flying Dragons, and Reply 1988.

Best Director

Jung Dae-yoon (W-Two Worlds)

Yoo In-sik (Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim)

Hong Jong Chan (Dear My Friends)

Lee Eung-bok (Goblin)

Song Hyun-wook (Oh Hae Young Again)

The directors of the Best Drama nominees except Moonlight Drawn by Clouds are nominated for the Best Director award. Instead of Moonlight PD, PD Song Hyun-wook of Oh Hae Young Again gets to complete the top 5. Two directors from this list were also nominated last year for the same award, namely, Jung dae-yoon for She Was Pretty and Lee Eung-bok for Descendants of the Sun. They lost the award to Reply 1988 PD Shin Won-ho, but they are back again this year with another chance to win.

Best Screenwriter

Song Jae-jung (W -Two Worlds)

Kang Eun-kyung (Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim)

No Hee-kyung (Dear My Friends)

Kim Eun-sook (Goblin)

Park Hae-young (Oh Hae Young Again)

For the screenwriter award, the list of dramas above is similar to the previous one for Best Director. Famous writer Kim Eun-sook is also nominated again this year. She was nominated for the same award in 2016 for her massive hit drama Descendants of the Sun, but she lost to Kim Eun-hee of Signal. If she wins the award this year, it will be her third record as she also bagged the award in 2011 and 2005 for Secret Garden and Lovers in Paris, respectively. In contrast, her contenders have never won the award before.

Best Actor

Park Bo-gum (Moonlight Drawn By Clouds)

Namgoong Min (Chief Kim)

Jo Jung-suk (Jealousy Incarnate)

Han Seok-kyu ( Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim)

Gong Yoo (Goblin)

Namgoong Min returns again this year after he lost the same award to Yoo Ah-in (Six Flying Dragons) in 2016. The most surprising name in the list above is Park Bo-gum who is the youngest among all the nominees this year. He will be competing with relatively more experienced actors than him in the industry, including Gong Yoo and award-winning actor Han Seok-kyu. Park Bo-gum received a similar award for his performance in Moonlight Drawn By Clouds in theKBS Drama Awards 2016, so his career as an actor will really reach new heights if he wins a Best Actor trophy from Paeksang this year.

Best Actress

Kim Ha-neul (On the Way to the Airport)

Park Shin-hye (Doctors)

Park Bo-young (Strong Woman Do Bong-soon)

Kim Go-eun (Goblin)

Seo Hyun-jin (Oh Hae Young Again)

Kim Go-eun will also attend the ceremony this year not as a Best New Actress nominee like in 2016, but as a contender for the Best Actress award. Like Park Bo-gum, she will also vie for the title with established actresses like Kim Ha-neul, Park Shin-hye, and Park Bo-young.

Kim Hye-soo won the award last year for her performance as a detective in Signal.

Best New Actor

Jin Young (Moonlight Drawn By Clouds)

Kim Min-seok (Doctors)

Kim Min-jae (Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim)

Ji Soo (Strong Woman Do Bong Soon)

Gong Myung (Drinking Solo)

In the Best New Actor category, the actors represent five different dramas unlike last year when three of the five nominees are cast of Reply 1988 (Ryu Jun-yeol, Ahn Jae-hong, and Lee Dong-hwi). Ryu Jun-yeol won the award in 2016.

Best New Actress

Lee se-young (Laurel Tree Trailors)

Gong Seung-yeon (Master of Revenge)

Bang Minah (Beautiful Gong Shim)

Kang Han-na (Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo)

Nana (The Good Wife)

In 2016, most of the nominees in this category came from cable dramas and only one from non-cable drama was included in the list. However, for this year that is reversed as only one actress of cable drama makes it to the list. That actress is Nana of tvN’s The Good Wife.

The other nominees are cast of dramas from KBS and SBS. Laurel Tree Tailors and Beautiful Gong Shim are the only weekend dramas that receive a nomination for this year’s ceremony.

Actress Kim Go-eun bagged the award last year for her performance as a hardworking college student in Cheese in the Trap.

The Paeksang Arts Awards is considered the most prestigious award ceremony of its kind in Korea. It promotes Korean culture and arts and recognizes achievements in the Korean entertainment industry. It is an annual ceremony being organized by IS PLUS Corp. since 1965. For this year, the screenings of potential nominees for film and television awards were conducted on March 30 and 31, 2017. The awarding night will be held on May 3, 2017.

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Me? Just an ordinary lad with an extraordinary (says this something called 'stereotype') habit of watching Korean dramas. It started with action-filled City Hunter and the rest, as they say, is history.